The strategic importance for Chief Executive Officers of all State Ministries, Departments, Agencies, Boards, Commissions and Parastatals to accommodate their Resident Information Officers in the day to day implementation of their annual action plan and strategic initiatives to achieve total publicity of the Governor Liyel Imoke transformation agenda and its impact on the people has again been stressed.
Addressing Information Officers at a one-day crucial meeting on "the need for officers to re-order their publicity priorities in the on-going implementation of Governor Imoke administration's achievements in Calabar, the Commissioner for Information, Chief Akin Ricketts, said carrying the Information Officers along at every point was very critical, emphasizing that if the Information Officer is not properly placed in the scheme of things in the MDA, the Information Officer would not be effectively positioned to report in the media, what the MDA is doing for public consumption.
"I am aware that we may not be doing enough as regards the huge achievements of the Governor Imoke-led administration in all sectors because your MDA head has not enabled you to do that. I feel very depressed when I get reports that some MDA heads implement their projects/programmes without alerting their Information Officers. Some even go to the extent of travelling for inspection of those projects, carrying only Directors without the Information Officer. How would such ongoing projects/programmes get published? How do we get the pictures of such projects or how would the Information Officer assess the impact of such projects/programmes on the citizenry" Chief Ricketts wondered.
The Commissioner enjoined MDA Heads to re-appraise their publicity strategy in the implementation of their programmes/projects, saying that using only the broadcast medium cannot give adequate publicity and advised them to embrace the Print media in their publicity plan, adding "it is only in the print medium that you can give details of the projects and its impact on the citizenry".
He charged Information Officers to assert themselves in their various MDAs and work closely with their Chief Executives to achieve the desired publicity for the MDA and add value to their initiatives.
"We are aware of your challenges, including inadequate working tools, unfavourable work environment and insufficient Information Officers to cover the 89 MDAs in the State as we can only boast of 27 at present but I urge you to be creative and send in reports timely in order to justify your earnings" Chief Ricketts charged.